Passports

Dictionary of American History
COPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc.

PASSPORTS

PASSPORTS issued to United States citizens provide proof of identity abroad and request, in the name of the secretary of state, that the holder be permitted to travel "without delay or hindrance" and, if necessary, be given "all lawful aid and protection." The earliest surviving passport issued by U.S. diplomatic officials dates to 1788. Until 1856, officials such as governors and mayors, as well as the U.S. Department of State, issued passports. After 1856, however, issuance was confined to the Department of State. Except for the Civil War period, passports were not required of foreign travelers to the United States until 1918. The requirement was made permanent in 1921. Under the Internal Security Act of 1950, passports could not be issued to members of communist organizations or to those whose activities abroad would violate the laws of the United States. The provision debarring U.S. communists from obtaining passports was revoked in 1964. Formerly, issuance was deemed to be at the absolute discretion of the Department of State, but in 1958 the Supreme Court recognized that the "right to travel" constituted a liberty of which a law-abiding citizen could not be deprived. As the twenty-first century began, plans were afoot to replace passports with a system whereby software would translate the pattern of a person's iris into a passport number.

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Passport

West's Encyclopedia of American Law
COPYRIGHT 2005 The Gale Group, Inc.

PASSPORT

A document that indicates permission granted by a sovereign to its citizen to travel to foreign countries and return and requests foreign governments to allow that citizen to pass freely and safely.

With respect tointernational law, a passport is a license of safe conduct, issued during a war, that authorizes an individual to leave a war-ring nation or to remove his or her effects from that nation to another country; it also authorizes a person to travel from country to country without being subject to arrest or detention because of the war.

In maritime law, a passport is a document issued to a neutral vessel by its own government during a war that is carried on the voyage as evidence of the nationality of the vessel and as protection against the vessels of the warring nations. This paper is also labeled a pass, sea-pass, sealetter, or sea-brief. It usually contains the captain's or master's name and residence; the name, property, description, tonnage, and destination of the ship; the nature and quantity of the cargo; and the government under which it sails.

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passport

pass·port
/ ˈpasˌpôrt/
•
n.
an official document issued by a government, certifying the holder's identity and citizenship and entitling them to travel under its protection to and from foreign countries. ∎ [in sing.]
a thing that ensures admission to or the achievement of something:
the sport utility vehicle seemed like a a passport to new adventures.

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